Linux – Still Chasing That Elusive 1 Percent Market Share

While I was trawling through Net Applications’ operating system share trend data for the past 24 months, something struck me. June 08 marked a big month for Linux. The OS saw the largest increase in market share for the whole 2 year period – a growth of 0.12%.

106 Comments

Linux will hover around 1% as long as major computer stores continue to sell computers bundled with you-know-who. There should be a law that prevents such bundling. You go to the store, buy the computer and then choose the operating system. It’s extremely simple.

That’s been my stance for a long time now. Teach how to do a skill not a brand of tool that performs that task. I can’t remember what brand of hammer I first put a nail to wood with and I’ve never required that same brand of hammer to attach two pieces of wood since. If I by Brofasco nails, I don’t required a Brofasco branded hammer to use them.

Schools are a very traditional and backward thinking institution though. Teachers may start with all the passion and enthusiasm imaginable but eventually, they are just trying to get through the school year and make it to retirnment. Just regurgitate the lesson plans from last year and mark the papers.

Bah.. teach a kid to use a computer rather than teaching them how to use a brand of software application.

I think they meant that the typical user doesn’t need Photoshop to begin with. It’s a niche professional application.

Well, if Photoshop is a ‘niche professional applications’ – there seems to be a very big niche market. The average end user would most likely use Photoshop Elements if anything. With that being said, with the increasing availability of academic software out there, there are a lot of people (rightly or wrongly) who run Photoshop because it can be obtained cheaply.

Photoshop isn’t the solution though, and it frustrates me that Linux advocates on here who cant see that it is being used as an example of a lack of mainstream big name desktop software vendors for Linux. As soon as Photoshop is mentioned there is foaming at the mouth and claims of “oh, they don’t need that!”.

I’d put you on an osX rig since it seems you actually use the 90% of Photoshop and other Adobe tools that most people will never touch and need a slick parformance focussed paltform.

The real downfall of Adobe outside of Apple/Microsoft markets was demanding license fees that where not justifiable in comparison to competing products for most users. Hm.. Photoshop does 10% more than GIMP yet they are still asking 700$ per install.. back to GIMP we go.

Now, they seem stuck on the myth that unless you run Microsoft or Apple systems, your unwilling to pay any license cost for software; nope, we just value quality, functionality and costs that are justifiable against those traits.

I’d guess your already on an Apple platform from the sounds of what your doing but that’s not based on anything further than your comment here so what do I know..

That little strategy was not overlooked by MS when they where still growing. They happily turned a blind eye to home users since they wanted the enterprise and home users ask for the tools the know and use at home (and vis-versa).

Now that they have dominant share, it’s all about the anti-piracy BS. No, you can’t seel computers without an OS because they’ll pirate our products.

My gripe isn’t with a company trying to protect its property but MS goes about it the wrong way and changes it’s stance depending on what is more applicable for that discussion.

Taking away choice could be considered fascism. Granted bundling limits choice in a way. It makes it simpler for non-technical people.

You go to the store, buy the computer and then choose the operating system. It’s extremely simple.

I would argue that it is not that simple at all. Take a look at systems theory in wikipedia. OS use follows complex ecosystemic interactions between business use, what you learned on, govt. support, what is supported in stores, what your use in your family, etc. Not that simple at all. Rather complex. Also changing behavior, human that is, is even more complex. We tend to stick with what we know even if there are better options out there. Not everyone has the motivation to change. One could argue that the majority of Windows users don’t care about the OS but really want to run certain games, programs like Office, that they are used to.

Linux will hover around 1% as long as major computer stores continue to sell computers bundled with you-know-who. There should be a law that prevents such bundling. You go to the store, buy the computer and then choose the operating system. It’s extremely simple.

I couldn’t disagree more. It doesn’t have anything to do with bundling, or availability. Linux is free, that pricing is far more competitive that Microsoft’s pricing. There’s no public demand for Linux because it is an inferior product for the majority of the home user market. Linux is great in a server room, and on an enterprise level, but for someone who essentially wants something to “just work” Linux fails. There have been many improvements in this area over the years but they have not surpassed Microsoft in general usability for the average consumer.

The big shift in computers in the past year has been from Windows to the Mac due in large part to usability and quality being superior to Windows. Also, positive experiences consumers have had with Apple’s consumer devices and the availability of some of their software on the Windows platform has advanced their mindshare with the public. Complaints of Microsoft bundling their OS to a HP machine at Best Buy is a cop-out.

oh, and lets not forget the amount of help microsoft gets in the “just works” department from the third party suppliers. as microsoft os’s are the big dog of the industry, not making sure that ones product work on it can be a economic suicide…

Linux will hover around 1% as long as major computer stores continue to sell computers bundled with you-know-who. There should be a law that prevents such bundling. You go to the store, buy the computer and then choose the operating system. It’s extremely simple.

I couldn’t disagree more. It doesn’t have anything to do with bundling, or availability. Linux is free, that pricing is far more competitive that Microsoft’s pricing. There’s no public demand for Linux because it is an inferior product for the majority of the home user market. Linux is great in a server room, and on an enterprise level, but for someone who essentially wants something to “just work” Linux fails. There have been many improvements in this area over the years but they have not surpassed Microsoft in general usability for the average consumer.

The big shift in computers in the past year has been from Windows to the Mac due in large part to usability and quality being superior to Windows. Also, positive experiences consumers have had with Apple’s consumer devices and the availability of some of their software on the Windows platform has advanced their mindshare with the public. Complaints of Microsoft bundling their OS to a HP machine at Best Buy is a cop-out.

Although Linux is free, Windows bundled PC is cheaper than Linux bundled PC. So you can see that actually Windows is more competitive than Linux.

looking at recent netbook prices, im not so sure about windows being cheaper (but for some reason, most multiversion netbooks seems to only put linux on the version with the inferior hardware). still, microsoft seems willing to take a loss on os, as long as they can get people “indoctrinated” on their products for the long term.

(but for some reason, most multiversion netbooks seems to only put linux on the version with the inferior hardware)

They put it on inferior hardware because thats the only market they have been able to penetrate. Most people who buy “good” hardware and want linux are not noobs, and would rather do it themselfs. The only time ive seen a computer illiterate person buy some good hardware is when I led them to it. Most ask does it do this? and go home with whatever hurts thier checkbook the least.

Windows bundled PCs are cheaper than Linux bundled ones because for Windows PCs, the OEM more than makes up the cost of the Windows OEM license with the revenue gained from deals to bundle trialware (aka “crapware”). (Corresponding Linux “crapware” is free to begin with, and is already available via the distro repository, so OEMs can’t make money via crapware bundling deals.)

So, cost to an OEM for bundling Linux is zero.

Cost to an OEM for bundling Windows is cost of Windows OEM license offset by crapware revenue, which actually makes it cheaper to bundle Windows than Linux.

I couldn’t disagree more. It doesn’t have anything to do with bundling, or availability. Linux is free, that pricing is far more competitive that Microsoft’s pricing. There’s no public demand for Linux because it is an inferior product for the majority of the home user market. Linux is great in a server room, and on an enterprise level, but for someone who essentially wants something to “just work” Linux fails. There have been many improvements in this area over the years but they have not surpassed Microsoft in general usability for the average consumer.

I couldn’t disagree more. After the third time I spent a few days rescuing my sister-in-law’s Windows computer from its latest breakdown (due mostly to accumulated malware) I suggested to her to let me put the Windows back on the machine as a “Virtual” machine where it could be protected a bit from the internet, and where I could re-instate it simply by replacing one file. She agreed.

So I installed Kubuntu for her, then Virtualbox, and then her copy of Windows under Virtualbox. It ran pretty well and I showed her how it all worked.

A few weeks later I asked her how it was going … she told me she didn’t use the Windows bit any more because the Kubuntu part was far easier to use and it didn’t get malware …

You still had to install that and set that up for her. Also she had windows in a virtual machine to use while she adjusted to Kubuntu. She wouldn’t have done any of that on her own. It’s a heartfelt anecdote, but it’s hardly the typical consumer scenario.

You still had to install that and set that up for her. Also she had windows in a virtual machine to use while she adjusted to Kubuntu. She wouldn’t have done any of that on her own. It’s a heartfelt anecdote, but it’s hardly the typical consumer scenario.

The point of the tale (admittedly an atypical one) that you seem to miss is that she didn’t know how to set up a Windows installation for herself either, but she was able to buy a Windows installation from the computer shop.

Her purchased Windows installation kept breaking on her through her normal use of it … to the point where it no longer worked at all and would have required as much expense (each time it broke) to get fixed (if she didn’t have my help) as the original cost.

She didn’t know how to set up a Linux installation for herself (if she didn’t have my help) but she couldn’t buy it from a computer shop … because it wasn’t offered to her as an option.

When she did get a Linux installation on her machine … it didn’t break on her through her normal use of the machine, and she found out quite quickly that in her normal use she didn’t need Windows at all … (once she was able to get a working Linux installation supplied to her).

She would not have bought a machine from a store with Kubuntu on it. Even if they had two boxes right next to each other. My point is that simply making something available doesn’t mean anyone will buy it. A couple years ago Wal-Mart, one of the largest retail chains in North America, tried selling computers with a Linux-based OS for about $200. They were extremely popular with Linux aficionados, but other than that no one else bought them and they were pulled from shelves.

What will really move Linux-based machines in to consumers’ homes is use in the office. Linux distributions should concentrate harder on workstations. Microsoft Office and Windows 95 were really how Microsoft won people over. That and video games. Linux is mostly used at home by people who use it at work. Work is the best way to force someone to do something, and the easiest way to make sure they keep doing it when they get home.

Linux will hover around 1% as long as major computer stores continue to sell computers bundled with you-know-who. There should be a law that prevents such bundling. You go to the store, buy the computer and then choose the operating system. It’s extremely simple.

No, it’s NOT that “simple”. Generally speaking, people want integrated solutions. They don’t want to install an operating system — hell, most people have no idea what an operating system IS or DOES — and they certainly don’t want to think about how it should be configured. They treat their computer as they would any other prepackaged component. They open the box, plug it in, and it’s ready for use. Done. They don’t want to hunt for drivers, read FAQs, or tweak config files. This issue of CHOICE, that seems so important to many of you, doesn’t even register on their collective radar. As far as they’re concerned, they made the CHOICE when they purchased the computer. If you want to change anything, you have to change the market relationship where the operating system is pre-installed; namely, at the PC OEM. Which means getting Dell and HP and Toshiba and others to choose Linux. But, seriously, how are you going to convince them to go Linux when they perceive the desktop Linux market to be less than 1% of users? It’s a chicken-and-egg problem.

You are bang on about choice. If you are chasing the mainstream market (god only knows why you would want to do this, but a lot of people do seem quite intent on it), choice is the last thing you want.

Every time someone has to make a choice, you are forcing them to think about something that they don’t want to think about. They don’t want to have to choose between Distros, DMs, WMs, Text Editors, File Managers, Browsers, etc. This is considered work.

Every time someone has to make a choice, you are forcing them to think about something that they don’t want to think about. They don’t want to have to choose between Distros, DMs, WMs, Text Editors, File Managers, Browsers, etc. This is considered work.

Well, Ubuntu is for that – one preselected item of most needed apps is preselected.

Linux will hover around 1% as long as major computer stores continue to sell computers bundled with you-know-who. There should be a law that prevents such bundling. You go to the store, buy the computer and then choose the operating system. It’s extremely simple.

I wish it were that simple. I’ve moved back to Mac after putting up with *NIX on my Lenovo laptop. I can tell you, in all due respects, the Linux world (distributions) need a good hard look at their product line up before spitting and cursing at Windows/Microsoft and OEMs.

There is a demand for an alternative, and Mac’s are filling that spot – and not all Mac OS X users are clueless drones. Many of us are *NIX people tired of waiting for the blessed silver bullet to arrive and bring the *NIX world kicking and screaming into 2008.

I suggest that every Linux advocate who knows how to programme – purchase a Mac, and study every single inch of the operating system; concentrate on the ‘small things’ that make using it a nice experience. Live, breath and eat the Mac experience, then go back to using a Linux machine – then tell me that Linux is ready for the masse.

Don’t get my wrong, I’m all for bashing a greedy bully such as Microsoft, but to ignore Linux’s short comings in a fit of Microsoft-hating rage accomplishes nothing.

Don’t forget that the PC market as a whole is still growing, so another way to spin this could be “Linux’s market share is continuing to hold up”. This guy is clearly a troll, hows about this for size:

..anyone who tells me that Linux is ‘easy’ as either deluded, has bought into the superstition, or is a liar..

So, all you lying, deluded fan-boys (I include myself in that!), looks like Mr Kingsley-Hughes thinks you’re a genius….

[edit – fixed UTF-8 copy-n-paste disaster. I think the devs on this site need to do a bit of work on handling unicode better!]

I’m so surprise, whenever I read some statistics like this, to see the low percentage of linux users. I mean, when I look around in ubuntu forum, gentoo, fedora, archlinux, <your distro I forgot sorry> forums ther’s plenty of people using linux. I also cannot believe companies to do anything for an OS used by less than 1% of computer users (or they are beting on a growth?).

remember, that % means nothing without some kind of added info like the total size of the group referred to, and how the data was collected.

distro forums will naturally show a high concentration of users for that distro. but if one collect browser data for all the major search engine sites and use that as a single large data set, what then?

think of it this way. you have 100 linux users in a room, then you march in 100 windows users. now you have a total of 200 people in that room, but the percentage of linux users dropped from 100% to 50%.

with larger groups, like what one get from looking at website logs, there may be 100000 linux users, but 1000000 windows users. this will send the linux % into a nosedive.

Why? If you use Linux at the desktop, chances are you’ve already changed your browser’s UserAgent string to some version of IE or FireFox for Windows so you don’t get tons of useless warnings from sites refusing to show you a page because you’re using an “unsupported browser” to view it. Those people will show up as Windows users in the survey.

That and you get a certain amount of skew based on the demographics of the sites.

It’s a sport sites, so it’s not chock full of tech geeks (like a distribution forum), just regular people.

Linux (which is categorized under Unix) is in the gutter.

Romania isn’t a rich country, but even Mac has a higher market share (remember, we import Macs from the US, with huge taxes, and because of low demand they’re sold as high priced luxury items, so they’re a lot more expensive than your average PC).

Checking for the top 10 or 20 sites shows the same thing. Under 1 percent. Linux is fighting Windows 98, not Vista

Market share only really matters to me because of the theory that significant market share = more drivers and hardware support, and possibly more commercial software (everyone always mentions Photoshop) releases for Linux.

But I’m wondering if that’s even fully necessary to increase market share to get that done. It would be interesting to see what would happen if Linux users somehow organized a kind of Linux user’s union, and then applied e-mails, letters, and other kinds of pressure to manufacturers to support Linux.

I wonder if 150,000 letters, say, to Adobe, might make a point. In theory, it should not be impossible to get 150,000 people to send a postal letter to Adobe asking for a Linux version.

Such a union could potentially be used for other projects as well.

In the US, it is pretty well known that broadcasting companies freak out and/or pull the plug over obscenity concerns on the basis of an extremely small minority of letter writers.

I have to wonder whether such pressure could be brought to bear on corporations for things like drivers.

Alternately, maybe, when looking at market share, the wrong question is being asked. Maybe it’s not so much about increasing market share, but increasing *market share statistics*, which are calculated in a number of ways, depending on who is releasing the stats.

I also wonder how much market share has to do with the enthusiasm (or lack thereof) of others adopting an OS in question. For example, the Mac’s market share has increased notably (congrats Mac users), and I’m wondering how much of this is momentum, and how much of this is something else (if I had to posit a theory, I’d say that from OS X on, geeks and developers have joined the artists and the like because of UNIX).

What effect would a television or mainstream (non-tech mag-related) advert campaign do for Linux?

Lastly, does anyone know of a Linux hardware certification? I’d love to be able to buy products off the shelf that are certified for compatibility/driver availability under Linux. One of the biggest pains in the butt is researching what is and isn’t compatible with Linux, and to what degree.

A combination of these three things might make a difference. As much as developers and power users may scoff, an advertisement during the Super Bowl showing a fully blinged Linux desktop in action (doing “iLife type stuff” – music, video, etc.) might really create curiosity about it.

Anyway, I’ve been using Linux on my desktop for 6 years now and I’m not going anywhere, in any case…Best major change I ever made in how I use computers. Linux is still not for everyone, but I still think it’s appropriate for more people than the market share numbers would indicate.

If for Mac OSX they are reluctantly write release for Intel architecture, I wonder why should they write release for Linux?

Well, I think you’re being far to generous for Adobes Windows gear. They seem to be reluctant to write decent software for those ‘pesky end users’. I would love to see these people work in customer service and have them realise that it is the customer who pays their wage – not some magical entity called a ‘corporation’.

Believe me, I’ve worked in companies with apparently very smart people who can’t seem to work out who actually pays their wage. I think maybe if the people at Adobe realised it, then they would treat their customers a whole lot better.

I couldn’t care less however. XP has become too much of a pain because reduced hardware support and Vista is just such a piece of muck that i wouldn’t even dream of using it if I would get it for free (which i could through my university accounts MS support program).

So Linux and BSD are pretty much the only choices left i have for my generic x86 boxes and so far Linux does a great job on those.

Easy installation is good, but that alone doesn’t make the system as a whole valuable to everyone. Installing should really only rarely be done.

Most people buy their computers with an OS preinstalled, so they don’t have to configure the machine themselves. Turn it on, and off you go!

It doesn’t matter what OS is installed in the beginning it just has to be useful.

Linux deficiencies are still general software availability. For a lot of uses it’s ok, but only very few linux desktop apps surpass Windows or Mac OS apps. This is worse for professional software in a lot of fields.

Easy installation is good, but that alone doesn’t make the system as a whole valuable to everyone. Installing should really only rarely be done.

Begs me to ask: why is it that most of the windows users I know need to reinstall their system often, to keep it running right ?

This question is not exactly directed to you, but since I had to quote you, I felt like “replying”.

They need to reinstall so often because they install crap – so-called performance boosters, registry tweakers, installation slimmers ad nausiem. I can tell you that after working at an ISP, you will see all manner of crap people install.

Oh, and these aren’t Joe Average, clueless village idiot – in a lot of cases these are so-called ‘power users’ installing all manner of garbage that slow the system down.

Does it occur in the Mac world? I can assure you it does. People thinking they’re hot shit because they install some piece of hackware to ‘uncover’ and ‘undocumented feature’. If I had a dollar for everytime I saw a scenario’s like that in a Mac forum, I’d be able to purchase Microsoft with enough change to purchase OS news contributors a pizza and a 6 pack of beer each.

The thing is, these people don’t need these tools. Its like the ‘registry junk’ – its been shown ad nausiem numerous times with the registry artificially loaded with random information – and it had no impact on the performance of the operating system. These registry tweakers remind me very much of ‘Norton Crash Guard’ that didn’t more crash causing than prevention.

As for the Mac hackware, again, they don’t need these things, they just want to feel as though they’re part of the ‘cool kids’ for using something ‘l33t’. Its almost as bad as programmers using private frameworks within Mac OS X and causing all manner of havock when end users upgrade their OS (Mac OS X 10.5 and that framework which caused problems.

note my comment about a open os. open in that anyone can find out anything, and its internals use plain english for as much as possible.

logs in windows? hex codes and numbers that one need external help to even begin to figure out. registry? again hex codes.

logs in linux? even the kernel is mostly english in its output. registry? outside if the monstrosity known as gconf, non-existant.

dont know about osx tho. but i would guess that at least the kernel and the other bsd related stuff have some level of english output to it. but given apples history of using cute little bomb graphics as error messages earlier, i would guess that anything made in-house at apple is as obfuscated as whatever microsoft makes. quite a change from the days of the apple 2…

The thing that Linux is really waiting for is the paradigm shift. I dont care how hard you think Linux is, Windows is just as much of a mystery to Grandma as Linux. My parents can’t work Windows, they can’t work OS X, so why should I be concerned that they can’t use Linux? My friend runs a Tech Support company in a rural area. The entire business is supported by people who have viruses, malware or just plain borked their system. The shift will (maybe) come when the paradigm shifts to appliance computing. Machines that are much more resilient and more limited in ability. Possibly something you rent from your ISP. Then we may see a sharp rise in usage unless MS pulls an ASUS and forces companies to use its OS.

i recall that a web appliance was tried by telenor in norway around the 90’s. didnt work out so well.

but that was then and this is now. it may actually work.

i recall reading that someone had set up a person with a N800 and a bluetooth keyboard so that he could access his banks web service. he was much happier with that then with the windows pc he had been using earlier.

Oh, this one again. Linux on the desktop is not a success because it has small market share, claims journo in desperate search for a story. Linux “should” have a larger market share. But this is never explicitly stated and we’re never told what this larger share “should” be.

In truth, Linux is for those who want it. You need to make an effort to acquire it, install it and learn how to use it. This on its own will rule out the vast majority of computer users, for perfectly understandable reasons. They are just not interested enough in computing, and there’s no reason why they should be.

Linux is also for those who want it and are prepared to seek it out because we live in capitalist economies. Shops can’t sell something for nothing. In any case, in business (and for an OEM) you will go with the supplier who offers you a better profit and a nice marketing contribution. Guess who that is. Compared to the competition, Linux doesn’t have any money and at retail offers hardly any prospect of making any money. So is Linux a primo candidate for supermarket-style sales? Nope. It will very likely remain difficult to obtain (compared to the competition).

So an answer to this article is “So what?” Linux on the desktop has a small market share because it operates in the kind of world which means Linux will always have a small market share unless the world changes. So what. Does that make it inferior or a failure? Nope. Cased closed on the chasing market share front. Desktop Linux could have 10 per cent market share and be pronounced a failure by analysts insinuating that it “should” have a 30 per cent market share.

Yes, there are plenty of questions one could ask about Linux doing things better. But this article doesn’t raise them. The real story at the moment, which this article on covers indirectly, is the resurgence of Apple. And whether Apple will use the revival in its PC fortunes to move into territory it has so far kept well away from, the enterprise.

Why when someone points out that you really need to know how to use your computer, another one will reply “Joe Average isn’t interested in computers”. Then why acquire one? How come such a complex electronic device should be useable with no formation whatsoever? What’s so “perfectly understandable” about trying to use something knowing nothing about it?

This isn’t a personal attack moleskine, I’m being completely honest, I never understood why a person should be able to use a computer without really knowing how to do it, the same way you don’t driver a car without knowing how, or don’t shoot a gun without knowing which end is the deadly one.

I never understood why a person should be able to use a computer without really knowing how to do it, the same way you don’t driver a car without knowing how, or don’t shoot a gun without knowing which end is the deadly one.

Nobody basically disagrees with your point. But have a look around you: You will see lots and lots of people doing *exactly* that: using a computer without having the slightest idea of what’s going on, and actually learning more or less nothing even after a long time. They are the people who constantly complain about their computers been broken (even when they aren’t), the fault is on someone else, and they never visited that dodgy website you mention. They are the ones who constantly ring the “friendly neighbor” to “have a look and fix” their pc, which is full of malware, bots and viruses anyway. You can make a leaving out of them actually.

This is not even an OS problem. It is an education problem. Computers are being sold as appliances – while clearly not ready for this role. It is the one “computer on every desktop” motto of MS.

Why when someone points out that you really need to know how to use your computer, another one will reply “Joe Average isn’t interested in computers”. Then why acquire one? How come such a complex electronic device should be useable with no formation whatsoever? What’s so “perfectly understandable” about trying to use something knowing nothing about it?

This isn’t a personal attack moleskine, I’m being completely honest, I never understood why a person should be able to use a computer without really knowing how to do it, the same way you don’t driver a car without knowing how, or don’t shoot a gun without knowing which end is the deadly one.

In my experience it’s pointless trying to understand why some folks are this way. Just accept it. Some folks aren’t interested and attempts to interest them usually fall flat. I know quite a few people who just want “a PC” with “Word”, that’s as far as it goes. They are not dumb at all. They are simply not in the least interested in computing and technology.

I have, though, learned to keep well clear. Often, a few days later, a terrible howling goes up as they discover they’ve been sold a broken old P1 with a virus-infested Windows ME and a pirated version of Word circa 1996. These days I resist “repairing” computers of this kind. I tell the owner to buy a new one with WinXP or Vista (howls at the price, of course) or, if they look the type, an Apple laptop. If they ask me what I run I say “Debian Linux” and offer them a try. At this point they give me a funny look and retire hastily and I am left in peace.

Linux is still very much an acquired taste. Lucky me, perhaps. But I don’t expect many other folks to share it.

In my experience it’s pointless trying to understand why some folks are this way. Just accept it.

Maybe it’s because you’re thinking about it the wrong way. There’s nothing really that extraordinary about a computer that should require that its operator develop a deep understanding about its inner workings — no more so than wanting to drive a car should make us want to know how to understand the engine, rebuild a transmission, etc. They’re both tools — designed for different purposes, to be sure — but they should do no more or no less than the operator requires. Which means that someone using a computer should only need to know a minimal amount of knowledge to login, browse the web, read email, draft a letter, print, etc.

I think that one of the mistakes that we, geeks, tend to make is in assuming that, since we work on a particular thing, that it necessarily should be the center of the universe; and that people should want to know more about what it does, how it works, what makes it tick, etc. But, in a lot of ways, I think that it’s a sign of failure when we require more than basic operational knowledge to use a given consumer appliance. We’ve grown accustomed to having appliances “just work”. We turn them on, they do their appointed function and, when they’re no longer needed, they’re out of sight and mind. Computers have given us an incredible amount of flexibility but, over time, the designers/programmers of these machines (namely, us) mistakenly assume that unbounded flexibility is a good thing; whereas, most people aren’t concerned with flexibility but utility. Generally speaking, they want to do specific functions. They don’t want to debug an application or fix a driver issue or whatever. The fact that they have to even descend into that chaos is proof that, for many users, offering a computer with a limited ability to upgrade/modify the configuration (other than security updates) would actually be more of a benefit than the unbounded flexibility/chaos that they have.

Many people have the idea that Apple computers are for those who know nothing about technology. Most Apple users I know have tried Windows (for many years) before and sometimes even Linux. They have more exposure and understanding of technology than the average user, but they choose to use OS X. Many of them are excited about technology and want to make the most of it. That’s why Mac users upgrade in droves and eagerly anticipate WWDC or Macworld. The average user for Windows hasn’t seriously tried any alternative and hardly cares about such matters.

OS X may be easier to use than the rest, but this is not the only factor and it doesn’t just attract users who have no clue how to use a computer. It appeals to many computer “geeks” like me too because of its UNIX core, open source components and development tools. I’ve used Windows almost all of my life and Linux (tens of distributions) since 2000, but I wanted to see what OS X was like. In early 2007, I purchased a Macbook. It was comparably priced to a similar Lenovo/Dell/Toshiba model and I knew I could run Windows and Linux on it. How could someone interested in technology pass up an opportunity to play with a brand new well-designed operating system?

Please don’t generalize users based on their choice of computer. For example, I’m not much into music, fashion/looking cool but being a douchebag, never owned any Apple products before (even a single iTunes song) and I’m certainly no computer novice.

Probably because even the most technically incompetent would be hard-pressed to inflict bodily injury by misusing a computer.

For most people a computer is just another household appliance; they don’t want to use the computer, they want to use myspace and youtube. I am not very interested in refrigerators, and am a little fuzzy when it comes to how they work or who built mine, but I have one anyway.

The user being able to understand what a steering wheel does and why one uses/turns it and what happens after.

What the gearbox does and what changes does it effect?

what do those buttons do and why does one use them?

One does not need to know how the steering wheel,gearbox, windscreen wipers etc. work but one needs to know what they do, when to use them and why does one use them. This is more than the typical pc usesr to whom I equate as being a trained dog:

easy to train using treats, but no less knowledgable or intelligent, does not know why it is doing the trick only expecting the treat at the end. Is it too much to ask users to have some sense of initiative?

also the fridge analogy: I might not know how a fridge works, but I know to close the door after usin it, not because that what I was told to do, but because I nkow that things will warm up / melt if I leave the door open.

Why when someone points out that you really need to know how to use your computer, another one will reply “Joe Average isn’t interested in computers”. Then why acquire one? How come such a complex electronic device should be useable with no formation whatsoever? What’s so “perfectly understandable” about trying to use something knowing nothing about it?

This isn’t a personal attack moleskine, I’m being completely honest, I never understood why a person should be able to use a computer without really knowing how to do it, the same way you don’t driver a car without knowing how, or don’t shoot a gun without knowing which end is the deadly one.

Two points:

1) People think they need to get on this ‘internet thing’ along with this ‘computer thing’ – apparently it is the ‘wave of the future’ and they don’t want to be left behind with the drift wood.

2) Where do you draw the line between basic understanding, and knowing how to tweak and edit files when Xorg fails to launch – or find that in the case of my Ubuntu experience, that the AAC/MP4 tags are mangled and my iPod couldn’t read them.

There is a very fine line between knowing the basics to get things done, and having to be an expert. I know Im going to be modded down to -20 and beyond, but the average user isn’t read for Linux – no matter how much you scream OEM, pre-install, and apt-get, it won’t make a lick of difference.

If I had to show a person what was involved with getting things working with *NIX for their iPod, they would scream in horror and say, “give me Windows back”. As I said in the previous message, look at what the competition offers – and stop blaming Microsoft for Linux’s short comings.

Man, I’m so freaking sick of your constant GNU/Linux bashing. You have clearly stated that you don’t find it as a viable alternative, and that’s fine, but I’ve read it a royal ass-ton times and you keep pushing it even if your comment is completely unrelated. Please stop.

Man, I’m so freaking sick of your constant GNU/Linux bashing. You have clearly stated that you don’t find it as a viable alternative, and that’s fine, but I’ve read it a royal ass-ton times and you keep pushing it even if your comment is completely unrelated. Please stop.

Excuse me, but I stated pretty damn clearly that just because someone isn’t interested in the inner workings of a computer – doesn’t mean that they should some how be excluded from owning one because of a small clicky group lead by yourself, don’t think they’re worthy to own a computer.

I never stated that everyone should use Linux, I used my experience as an example of Linux – and given this is a linux article after all, I don’t know what you’ve flown off the handle with the paragraph ranting about how I hurt your precious feelings. To me, the fact that you need to complain about me directly tells me that you have some deep seated insecurity issues. Maybe you should sit down and think about things for a while before resuming your position at the keyboard.

a device that requires proprietary software, or protocol hacks, to transfer music to and from, when you can get one that basically acts like a usb storage device and work with just about anything with a usb port?

fashion over function i say, and good riddance ones its gone. if that ever happens…

a device that requires proprietary software, or protocol hacks, to transfer music to and from, when you can get one that basically acts like a usb storage device and work with just about anything with a usb port?

fashion over function i say, and good riddance ones its gone. if that ever happens…

Small problem there tiger; I’ve had two USB Mass Storage based mp3 players so far; a Sansa and Cowon. Both are terrible once you get a sizable number of music on there the whole thing either stops working, works very slowly or worse, loads and the database that it creates (and updates) each boot is corrupted.

Right now I’m in the process of returning my Cowon D2 – in a fit of ‘optimism’, I bought it to avoid needing to have special software; all I’ve had so far is, when I load my 178 albums on there, the whole thing dies; the db it creates when it loads becomes corrupted – the number of files is well within the limits (2,000 on internal, 2,000 on external storage).

So no, things aren’t as simple as ‘screw proprietary’. Some of us value form and functionality over ‘raging against the machine’ – what ever you define the machine as.

well i never understood the need to carry around ones whole collection of music.

the battery, and time your out and about will rarely last long enough to hear the entire thing.

and whats the deal with a database on a player? it already has a filesystem. use it for what its worth…

Unfortunately I tried to do that, and it only showed two directories and I couldn’t access the flash expansion either. I keep my whole collection on there because I can’t be bothered loading and unloading, loading and unloading stuff. Its almost a certainty that if I don’t load everything on, I’ll get half way down the road and realise I want to listen to a song I haven’t loaded on there yet.

sounds like we have quite different styles of entertainment consumption then.

me, i just put on whatever i have to make dead time go by.

For me, it depends on the mood I am in; I’ll listen to Rammstein/Fear Factory on minute, then switch over to John Coltrane or Ella Fitzgerald. As for my reason; I tend to listen to music to avoid the garbage being played at the local shops. Teeny bopper music from the ‘top ten’ hardly warms the cockles of my heart.

At the end of the day, I think the important thing is this; we have choice. This goes for operating systems as well. We all find an operating system that suits us – and personally, I don’t think there will ever be an operating system that’ll keep everyone satisfied. In the end, we are all different, and you either go one way in design or another way – attempting to go down the ‘middle’ makes no one happy. Unfortunately for Microsoft they think they can cater for everyones needs instead of just accepting that it isn’t possible.

indeed, we have a choice. until some locked down file format or something ends up being de-facto standard for communications…

im very sad with apple over their lack of odf format support in iwork.

and thats just it, apple is just as bad as microsoft when it comes to trying to build vertical silos. hell, its recently shown that the optical drive on the macbook air is just some of the shelf one, except for a custom firmware on the chip doing the bridging between ide and usb. it will only talk to a usb controller that hands out the correct id.

and for what? so that noone goes and buys it and use it on a gray box pc?

while i dont think im as far out as RMS, i can see where he is coming from…

indeed, we have a choice. until some locked down file format or something ends up being de-facto standard for communications…

im very sad with apple over their lack of odf format support in iwork.

Interesting that on my MacOS X 10.5.4 I was able to open up an odf document using textedit – I’m surprise one can’t do the same in Pages.

and thats just it, apple is just as bad as microsoft when it comes to trying to build vertical silos. hell, its recently shown that the optical drive on the macbook air is just some of the shelf one, except for a custom firmware on the chip doing the bridging between ide and usb. it will only talk to a usb controller that hands out the correct id.

and for what? so that noone goes and buys it and use it on a gray box pc?

while i dont think im as far out as RMS, i can see where he is coming from…

This isn’t a Mac only thing, it happens in the PC world, along with the media players too. Most mediaplayers these days have fallen for the trap of MTP, which screws anyone who has a Mac and wants official support for their devices – leaving the iPod the only one.

What is worse, the number of media player vendors who don’t support aac simply to save a few dollars. I can assure you that if I was in their shoes, I’d be more willing to say “screw you” to wma in favour of aac instead of providing support for a format that only a few actually use (most online music stores still using mp3).

I agree. But I think that a lot of advocates on both sides tend to rationalize the “success” or “failure” of Linux in terms of market share. But I like what someone else once said: Linux doesn’t need to “win”. All that it has to do is “exist”. As long as there’s an alternative to WHATEVER happens to be popular, it promotes competition and makes everything better. So, we all win. 😉

I don’t see what everyone’s obsession with a massive marketshare for linux is. Personally, my interest in the OS has seriously nose dived as it has become more and more popular, and everyone trying to be user friendly. I don’t want linux to be user friendly, I want it to be alpha-geek friendly. Not so much because using a complex system makes you special, more that the people who enjoy using figuring out and using complex systems are typically the kind of people I relate to the best.

Been spending more and more time in BSD communities, cause at least there you still have the old geeky clubhouse feeling, not these hordes of morons who think they are hot stuff because they run ubuntu on their machines.

Anyways, commercial shops are not going to start supporting the OS any time soon, so why is everyone obsessed with the big marketshare thing? Linux doesn’t have anything to prove that it hasn’t already proven. This drive to out do windows is what is going to kill the eco-system, as more and more people like me get frustrated by the shift in user base.

It does my head in, the way some people think that numbers matter. I use Linux because it does what I want.

I have 7 computers at home. 1 is a Mac with Leopard, 1 is an old ultrasparc running Solaris 9 and the rest are generic pc’s.

Of the PC’s, 1 has a multi-boot with XP and Vista, another has pc-bsd and the other three have the following.

This machine, (my main desktop), Opensuse 11

Another has Sabayon

and the last has Ubuntu 7.10, after dumping 8.04 (as it is pants).

I do not care if 1%, 10% or 99% of computer users are using Linux, Mac or Windows… The only thing I care about, is that I can get my computer to do things I want to, when I want to, and how I want to.

So a message to all you people who say Linux/Windows/Mac/Solaris/BSD are not ready for the desktop, GET A LIFE, there is people who are successfully running these desktops productively, and most probably, loving every minute of it.

What really matters in this world is which OS is doing the most computing. I’m quite sure the Linux computers out there are doing more work than the Windos machines. Probably like 10x more work. So maybe one should view Linux as 10% market share. Most people I know running Win only surf or play games so I don’t count them in the equation.

What are these people basing their research from? I believe that their numbers come from Paid linux distros where they are recorded as sales. And if not paid for, Downloads are the other field. How do you know that your downloaded Distro was actually installed and running? If most Linux Distros do not have some form of tracking embedded, The numbers could be far greater than what they lead you to believe.

What are these people basing their research from? I believe that their numbers come from Paid linux distros where they are recorded as sales. And if not paid for, Downloads are the other field. How do you know that your downloaded Distro was actually installed and running? If most Linux Distros do not have some form of tracking embedded, The numbers could be far greater than what they lead you to believe.

They are % hits of web pages based on the browser user agent as recorded by Network Applications a company which generates web usage statistics for their business customers.

This is of course skewed depending on the sites monitored. However it does give an idea of the % of overall visitors who are using Linux to visit boring business sites. However this data was discussed in an earlier thread (it keeps on getting recycled with a different spin by different authors).

What I found was that Linux is building on a proportionately low base, but it is taking off fast while Mac is merely showing a modest increase to its existing base. Linux is the fastest growing operating system for 2007-08 if you look at these stats properly.

I am definitely enjoying using it at work. I really dont know enough to suggest what Linux community is doing wrong in general. But I just popped in Ubuntu 8.04 and followed the screens and I was up and running on a 3-4 year old box in no time. There are a few hickups but nothing I cannot live without. It even detected the wireless and bluetooth when I put it on a Dell laptop!

And considering the hardware I really am convinced that the snappy factor that I always think is very important would not be delivered by an OS from Microsoft. But Ubuntu is able to provide that for me. Even with compiz running.

Yet these statistics are meaningless as long as their sources are not identified. For example, I can quote http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp and say that Linux could reach 4% by the end of the year. And that wouldn’t be surprising, considering the website

Whether it’s 1% or 4% is pretty meaningless, since it’s in the low single-digits, and has remained there for the past decade. I think that the bigger point is that Linux is still around, people are still using it, and it’s advancing; and, since Linux has never really been a slave to market share, the people that use it could (or should) care less.

Just today I started a new job. They tried to set me up a duel boot laptop. Windows and Linux. Windows works fine, they spend the whole day trying to get Wi-Fi to work with Ubuntu hardy-herring, and still it doesn’t work correctly, it finds the device it sees the open networks however it will not connect securely to the network we need. That is just today.

The last time I tried to install Ubuntu it wouldn’t find my common (supported) video driver natively I had to do a bunch of hacks to get it to work. I had problems were people who wanted to play their MP3’s and the sound was very noticeably bad quality and jumpy….

You go and ask for support they treat you like some newbe who never used a computer or linux before, and won’t admit that there are problems or point you to an out of date google link of a fix that doesn’t fix the problem.

There is so much effort in evangelizing linux that they are taking a blind eye to all the little problems. They will focus on Linux’s strong points and windows weak points however they will be blind to the opposite.

So the average joe (who is just as smart as the rest of us) will see the little problems and decide to stay with what they know and does what they wanted to do.

Love Linux. Its the underdog. It gave me some form of sanity when my company supplied laptop with Windows XP just cracked the shits all the time on me.

Love OS X. It gave me a huge form of sanity when I am too busy in my life and work to have to solve all the same Windows/Microsoft Problems for the past 20 years that keep on showing up because no one wants to fix the core/root issue/cause. And when Linux is just too much hastle to manage/run. I use it now the majority of my time at work, linux on my company laptop and no more Windows PCs at my house.

My folks are not computer literate and they’ve had Windows PCs I’ve set up and provided for them for the past 20 years. Now that I am no longer even remotely in the same country to provide technical support to keep their Windows PCs up and running, they’ve decided to throw them all away and have now bought Macs with OS X. Its just gotten too difficult for them to keep their computers running in the years since I left the country.

As his daughter lives with them he provided a new computer with Ubuntu Linux on it. After a year of that they told him to take it back and they went out and bought a couple Macs with OS X.

Just my own experience. My brother is a bit of a tech head, likes programming and building robots and the like. For him and others so minded Linux is great. But not even the great Ubuntu worked on my folks which represents the bulk of users out there experience wise. They have been happiest so far and even willing to pay for it, with the Macs and its OS X.

That said, every OS has its faults, and OS X is not some shining star, but its given my brother and myself the best respit from tech support calls/pains from my folks to date.

To me at least. I don’t have a compulsive need for people to love my operating system, and looking at what’s been accomplished, I’m happy with the status quo. I’d even go as far to say i’m weary about the effect an influx of users would have, and think it’s more than likely that save for the underlying layer, it’d just become another proprietary *nix in the vain of OS X.

Forrester estimates 1 billion (1000 million) PC’s in this planet by the end of this year. And 1% would be 10 million PC’s and more than 10 million users around the world. That is the population of just one of the biggest cities in the world (Mumbai, Delhi, Seoul, Mexico City, etc) – reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_population. Not much really but not zero either.

And notice… Linux has slightly increased desktop market share in the overall growing market – which means it has higher growth rate than some other OS’es.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see it (and the BSDs for that matter) get a good-sized market-share. However, various commercial companies (e.g. Apple, Ferrari etc) manage very nicely with what are not huge percentages of the market. Also, Red Hat is doing very well at the moment, even if “Linux” as such still has a small market share.

Things like the recent 50 million desktop Linux deal in Brazil are encouraging, as is the rise of Linux in notebook computers. Throw in the ever-continuing trend of companies, councils, schools, governments switching from Windows to Linux, and things look pretty positive on the Linux front.

“for me Linux falls into that “science experiment” category and Iâ€™ve learned to identify anyone who tells me that Linux is â€œeasyâ€ as either deluded, has bought into the superstition, or is a liar.”

It helps if you’re not a complete idiot. But that is true for almost anything. Windows is not an exception. Thus the learning curve is somewhat relative. Linux is for enthusiasts more or less. Windows is well what you get most of the times pre installed. For better or worse.